Cannot install Dictionary for MIDs English-Chinese

[MIDs2009]

Hi Gert,

i found the problem for my "No dictionary loaded".  i got the path wrong.  Actually it is easy to make that mistake.  i think that's why many others have the same problem. 
I should have the path "file:///Mmc/MUSIC/3.4.0" instead of "file:///Mmc/MUSIC/3.4.0/dictionary" .  So you see I thought the dictionary is a directory so i included in the path.  so dictionary is a file.

For those of you who had the same problem i have, here what i have done:
all the previous versions don't have the browser function to find your path file, so i suggest you to download version 3.4.0 which is given by Gert in this thread.  Also version 3.4.0 don't have a dictionary file so it is quite small so your mobile phone can accept and run it.  i think you already have a dictionary file from previous version already.  BTW, the browser is not so great but it will do the job.  After you selected one directory and another and another but it doesn't give you stop and let you hit "Apply".  so what you should do is after you browse you path, you can write it down and go back and key in in your phone.    So here we go:

1. i copy mids_3.4.0.jar, mids_3.4.0.jad, dictionary and put in one folder called 3.4.0  (some phones don't require jad file, but if you require jad file, you can download a program called "JadMaker" so you can create your own jad file.) i had a JadMaker_1.15 but i dont know how to attach it here.
2. i then copy this folder to SD card or you can copy it to your phone memory
3. i go to the phone and run mids_3.4.0.jar file, it ran perfect and has no error except the "no sign" which is no big deal, just continue.
4. now came the part where i had struggle for 2days.  Create the right path for the application to load the dictionary.  you can create your path "file:///directory1/directory2/etc.../ and stop right here, DON'T name the last directory "dictionary".  that was my mistake, i thought dictionary was a directory so i include dictionary in my path so i can read the files inside the dictionary, but doing that don't work.  If your phone ran the jar file ok and has "no dictionary loaded" then the only problem is to set your path correct.

i hope this help.......keep posting if you have problem........i will try to help if i can.

[t_rain]

Hi forum!

First of all thanks to all the good people here that made all the effort to let us use this great application on our mobile phones.

I just want to report my problems with the current version of the English-Chinese version of dictionarymid - i hope there is someone that can help me out here.

Phone
Samsung s5230 (bought in china, so there is chinese input available)

The problem:
I first downloaded: DictionaryForMIDs_3.4.0_ChiEng_CEDICT.zip from the download section. Installing went smoothly, but then when starting the application there is an error message like:

Code Select Expand

JAVA ERROR
invalid Format

That's all. no more debug output.

The same problem with the somehow "patched" file from GERT :
http://www.kugihan.de/dict/download/test_versions/3.4.0/CEDICT_from_312/DictionaryForMIDs_3.4.0_CEDICT_old.jar

The only thing that runs is the "empty" version, without any dictionary. So i installed the empty version and downloaded the dictionary file (cedict_ts.u8) directly from http://www.mdbg.net/, to be specific it was the following file:
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/export/cedict/cedict_1_0_ts_utf-8_mdbg.zip

Then i transfered the dictionary file to my mobile phone (to the internal memory) and started the application. As expected it says "No dictionary loaded", so i went to settings and tried to get the path to the dictionary file right.

But exactly here is the problem, whatever i tried, nothing worked. Then i read the somehow related post: http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/forum/index.php?topic=150.msg855#msg855 But still, i didnt get it working, i just copied the dictionary file into a folder called "cidian" and then tried to set the path for the dict file to:

"file:///Internal memory/cidian"

But no effect, still the old "no dictionary loaded" problem. Does anyone know if this is the correct path for the Samsung S5230 phone model, or what do i have to enter in the dictionary path?

I hope there is someone out there that can help me and get this great and useful app finally running on my samsung.

Cheers,
t_rain

[Gert]

Thanks for you excellent problem description - this is very good example for a problem report !! It really helps us so much to have a good problem description with clearly identified device, jar file version and error messages !

Let me try to answer you in two parts.

1. "invalid Format" on your Samsung s5230

I 'googled' for that problem on the s5230. It seems that several people did run into this problem on the s5230 with different applications, and in some forums people write about 'solutions' for this. However I am not sure which of those are true solutions.

Just to be sure that nothing went wrong during the installation process: could you deinstall the DfM application (if it should be installed on your s5230) and then install only the file DictionaryForMIDs_ChiEng_CEDICT.jar. You need to extract that DictionaryForMIDs_ChiEng_CEDICT.jar file from the file DictionaryForMIDs_3.4.0_ChiEng_CEDICT.zip.


2. Installation of CEDICT as a 'loadable dictionary'

You need to copy the file DictionaryForMIDs_ChiEng_CEDICT.jar on your s5230. Do not copy the mdbg file, because DictionaryForMIDs does not recognize the file format of the mdbg file.

I recommend that for 'loadable dictionaries' you use the following DictionaryForMIDs version: http://www.kugihan.de/dict/download/testversions/3.5development2/DictionaryForMIDs.jar.

Let me know about your progress !

Best regards,
Gert

[t_rain]

Hi Gert,

@ 1
I did exactly as you exlained, but no result, still the same "JAVA ERROR, invalid Format". I know that i have to install the *.jar file... Seems to be a Samsung specific problem then...

@ 2
The file you gave me works fine, at least the empty dictionary. And i extracted the *.jar file, transfered it to my mobile.
The only problem that i still have is that i can' tell the application where the dictionary file is.
I tried the following in the Dialog -> Settings -> Dictionary path:

"file:///Internal memory/DictionaryForMIDs_ChiEng_CEDICT.jar"
or
"file:///Internal memory/"
or
"file:///"

none of them worked.

I think the problem is that i have no clue how they call the "root" directory of the phone memory on the samsung. I copied everything to the phone memory, and in the "Pc Studio" software from samsung it says like that the phone memory is referred to as "Internal memory".

Can anyone help here? What path do i have to enter...

Thanks in advance,
t_rain

[Gert]

@1
Maybe you can google for that problem; there are several recommendations for solving this in other forums, but I did not find an obvious solution. Maybe there is simply a file size restriction in your s5230 phone, and the error message is misleading.

@2
Just use the 'file system browser' that is available in DictionaryForMIDs. When you set the focus in the "Dictionary path" field, then there will be a menu item called 'Browse' (or similar, I just do not recall the label). Selecting this function will start the file system browser that was contributed by Joshua Koo. You can then select the file DictionaryForMIDs_ChiEng_CEDICT.jar and the path name will be correctly set to whatever your Samsung cell phone uses.

Best regards,
Gert

[t_rain]

Hi,

with your suggestion in @2 i could manage to first install the empty version of the dictionary, then use the browser to point to the *.jar file with the dictionary and finally start the application.

But there are still remaining issues:

issue #1
The browser looks nice, but on my samsung S5230 phone it loads the filesystem only every second, or third time i restart the phone. That is somehow strange. So if there is anyone else using this samsung out there, pls try to reproduce that.

issue #2
After pointing to the DictionaryForMIDs_ChiEng_CEDICT.jar in the browser, i restart the application. Restart the phone (just to be sure).

Then start the application. The first screen with the user-data question appears after 5 seconds or so, BUT the Start Window with xy Chinese entries and xy English entries shows up after more than 2 minutes. That is way to much for my understanding. When i enter a search-word, it takes another 2 minutes or so to finally display the following

Code Select Expand

(...max nr of hits reached)

All in all, it somehow works to manually point to the dict file, but i can't look up words. Besides it is way to slow. I tried the other direction (Chinese to English) too, but the same result, i.e. no result...

So i hope my error report somehow helps. I guess the S5230 is an extremely popular phone nowadays, so I strongly hope that someone can find a solution for the remaining problems.

@ Gert, what are your ideas?

It would add so much value to my phone, if i could run this application!

Thanks a lot in advance,
t_rain

[Gert]

Your postings are VERY valuable, because these postings give us hints where there are still problems and how to improve the 'loadable dictionary' feature of DictionaryForMIDs.

Issue #1: if I remember correctly then Joshua's file system browser does load the initial directory during startup of DictionaryForMIDs. You write that even after a restart (= reboot in my understanding) of your phone you do not see the updated files . Very strange.


Issue #2:

After pointing to the DictionaryForMIDs_ChiEng_CEDICT.jar in the browser, i restart the application. Restart the phone (just to be sure).

Restarting DictionaryForMIDs is currently required (will not be required once development of loadable dictionaries will be completed), no restart of your phone should be necessary.

Then start the application. The first screen with the user-data question appears after 5 seconds or so, BUT the Start Window with xy Chinese entries and xy English entries shows up after more than 2 minutes.

During startup there should be a few confirmations that you need to do ('user-data question' as you call it), which is due to the missing certificate. Does it take a long time after each confirmation, or is there a single long waiting time after the last confirmation ?

When i enter a search-word, it takes another 2 minutes or so to finally display the following

Could you do the following test: can you enter a word that results only in one translation (or very few translations), and tell me how long it takes to translate. Please do not use wildcards when you test this.

Besides it is way to slow.

Ok, so the direct access to the jar file is much too slow on the S5230; this is interesting for me to know, cause it means that for the future development we need to give priority to the automatic unpacking of the jar files (roughly something similar to Achim's implementation for the Android platform may be done there one day). [as a side comment: before I will do any implementation work on the automatic unpacking, I first want that certificate topic to be solved.]

Short term, in order to solve your 'way too slow'-problem, you need to manually unpack the files of the .jar file and put them on the file system. You will see that all response time problems will be gone then - I assume  so .

Can you please look at http://dictionarymid.sourceforge.net/faqLoadableDictionaries.html, section "Alternative 2: extract the dictionary files from the JAR-file (faster)". And then please let me know if that works for you.

Best regards,
Gert

[t_rain]

@ Issue #1

To make it clear. On my samsung the filebrowser does not show any filesystem for most of the time. When i restart (reboot) the phone, i can see the filesystem of the phone - but not always. Anyway imho i can live with that, as we have to set the path for the dictionary only once. But issue #2 is the nitty-gritty in here.

@ Issue #2

In my previous post, i couln't translate any word, not even the most simplest one with only a few translation results.

This time i used the German-Chinese version of \DictionaryForMIDs_3.1.2_ChiGer_HanDeDict, as it seems that the jar file is smaller here, so i can transfer it faster to the mobile device.

So i used 7zip (7zip.org) to decompress the jar file and tried transfered all the 1.430 files to my phone. Takes ages too. and after about 1000 files tranfered i get the error message: "Max entry exceeded" from the smasung "new pc studio". Maybe i try to organize a miniSD card and try it there again...

All in all, i'm giving up on dictionarymid for now. i don't have enough time to install, deinstall, and so on. I like the idea of the project but my time is really limited, so i might try some of the future versions of dictionarymid.

It would be nice if someone can keep me updated regarding a working version for the samsung S5320.

cheers,
t_rain

[Gert]

Ok, in any case thank you for your useful postings !! Yes, the 'loadable dictionaries' are still in the "experimental" stage, and the fundamental certificate problem is still not solved (i.e. there are lots of confirmation messages because DictionaryForMIDs does not have a certificate from a commercial company such as Verisign).

Too bad that the Samsung S5320 seems to be very limited in the capability to run big Jar-files.  For me it seems the S5320 just is not able to run a big Jar-file directly, for example the famous CEDICT dictionary !

Hey, maybe people just should keep asking Samsung to remove their restriction for big Jar-files, then their cell phones will run DictionaryForMIDs as it is, without any struggling with 'loadable dictionaries' !!   

Best regards,
Gert

[t_rain]

*update*

I finally go the dictionary working on my samsung S5230.

In short the steps are:

1) get an mini SD memory card (i couldn't transfer the unpacked jar file with the samsung new pc studio to the internal phone memory, as there seems to be a strange number of files restriction. Further it seems that the S5230 cannot handle big jar files, that's why you have to unpack the jar file)
2) unpack the *.jar file of the dictionary on your computer
3) transfer the unpacked *.jar file to your mini SD memory card (don't use samsung's tool, use an SD adapter and your cardreader)
4) install the "empty version" of the dictionary
5) reboot the phone
6) run the empty dictionary and go to "Settings->Dictionary -> Browse" and point to the directory where you copied the unpacked *.jar file to
7) run the dictionary and have fun

Thanks to all the good people for all the work with the dictionary! it's a great piece of software...

cheers,
Thomas